Sleeping For A While
by TrueFlawlessLove
Summary: Buried deep in a dangerous place, light is shed on a painfully hidden secret...and as revelations of an unspoken love rings true, fate's trickery appears.


**Title:** Sleeping For A While  
**Author:** Bethany M. Brosnan & Demelza Watt  
**Disclaimer:** CSI: New York and its characters belong to Jerry Bruckheimer, CBS and its other owners. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and are used here without permission.  
**Warnings:** Danny/Lindsay, Angst, Possible Mature Content  
**Rating:** M  
**Summary:** Buried deep in a dangerous place, light is shed on a painfully hidden secret...and as revelations of an unspoken love rings true, fate's trickery appears.

\./

Finally finished for the day, nine and a half hours of endless lab work, Lindsay was finally headed home. She left the lab, saying goodnight to Mac and Stella on her way out. She thanked the kindly gentleman who opened the main doors for her, then stepped out into the crisp, stale, New York air.

She shivered ever so slightly and started to walk out to her right, headed towards the street corner, when a voice called out behind her.

"Montana! Wait up!"

Slowing her pace, she looked over her shoulder and smiled at Danny.

He raced until he was beside her, giving her one of his charming smiles.

"What's up, Danny?" she asked, smiling up at him.

"Nothin' really, guess I kinda had a plan to ask you out for a drink to unwind, but I forget you've got that...thing...on Wednesday."

"Thing?" she asked, both amused and a little curious. She had no clue what he was talking about.

His right eyebrow rose slightly as he looked back at her. "You don't go dancing every Wednesday?"

"No," Lindsay laughed. "I've never gone dancing on a..."

"Huh," he mused, stopping her mid-speech. "You do now, Montana."

She blinked, staring up at him, a dumbfounded smile on her lips. "Oh I do, huh?"

"Yeah," Danny replied. He wet his lips, "I mean if you don't want me steppin' on ya with my two left feet, that's cool..."

"No it's...I..." She fumbled with the words, when she let out a soft sigh. "Why me?"

"Well..." He shrugged a little with his right shoulder. "I thought about askin' Flack, but you know Stella..."

She shrugged herself, shaking her head. "She'd tell everyone?"

"Nah, she'd be jealous I didn't ask her," he said with a laugh, making her laugh too.

A little nervous, Lindsay started walking slowly, Danny keeping up with her quiet pace. She really didn't know what to say. Dancing? With Danny? The idea amused her more than anything else. Firstly because she knew neither one of them _could_ dance, and the second because he wanted to go dancing with _her_.

"So...you up for it, Montana?"

Swallowing, she lifted her gaze from the pavement and looked up at him. "I'd like to...but..."

He put up his hand, smiling. "Say no more."

"It's not that I wouldn't like to go dancing with you, I mean it's..."

"Montana, it's okay," he said. "Maybe we can raincheck it?"

"I'd like that," Lindsay smiled. She watched him for a moment, his smile had all but faded as he walked, and she felt guilty inside, knowing everything that had happened in recent days.

They walked silently for a few more minutes, when she started saying the first thing that popped into her mind. "I called the hospital tonight. The Vic's bad. She's got swelling on the brain, broken ribs, punctured lungs, dislocated shoulder...they're sure she won't make it." She shrugged at the thought, not looking at him. "The nurse I spoke with said they were giving the family the decision on whether or not to stop life supp..."

At her side, Danny stopped slowly and looked at the ground.

Lindsay, a few steps ahead of him, stopped and turned, looking at him, when the realization hit her. She cursed herself under her breath. "Danny, I'm..." She took a broken step forward, shaking her head, "I'm sorry" she said, "I didn't realize what I was saying."

"It's not your fault," he replied, lifting his gaze to hers.

"Still," she paused, "I feel bad."

"Don't, okay?" he asked, and she quietly nodded.

His gaze returned to the ground ground, only looking a few inches ahead of him, before going back to the same spot.

Lindsay sighed, looking at him. She could see all his hurt and pain, and seeing it, toppled with his increased anxiety, made her guilt hit her harder. She swallowed, softly asking, "How is he doing?" after a moment.

"Same; Nothing's changed," he replied, his gaze unmoved.

She nodded slowly. "That's good, right?"

He lifted his eyes from the ground to meet hers, "Yeah."

They were both silent for the longest minute, when he exhaled, took in another breath, and shrugged ever so lightly with his right shoulder. "So, tomorrow..."

"Tomorrow?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Work."

"Right," she said, a slight blush forming in her cheeks, "I'll see you tomorrow..."

"At work," he added with a wink.

"Yeah," she laughed, her every thought still pained with guilt.

"Yeah," he murmured back, when he turned, "Night, Montana," he said, walking across the street ahead.

She watched him for a moment, then started walking herself. She was midway across the street to her left, when she turned around quickly, calling out, "Night, Cowboy!"

Across the other side now, Danny looked over his shoulder, waving back to her as she walked hurriedly down the street. He turned, chuckling numbly, and continued walking.

\./

Later, and on the last stretch of pavement before her apartment, Lindsay shivered from a rush of ice cold air, wrapping her jacket tightly around her. She couldn't stop thinking about Danny, about how stupid she had been. She should have known better than to talk about the girl at the hospital, about the decision the family was now faced with.

He'd probably never want to speak with her again now, except if he maybe had to.

Greeted from a few people from her building as they headed out for the night, she nodded to them, mumbled a faint 'hi'.

What was she thinking?

She shivered again as another breeze hit just as she came to the doors to her apartment building. She pulled her keys from her pocket, unlocked the double doors, then went inside. It was almost as cold in the foyer as it was outside, and when she made her way up the stairs to the first floor, she went straight to her door, put the key in the lock, and made her way inside.

Her apartment was several degrees warmer than outside, thanks to the night-store, and she turned on the light, before pulling off her jacket and hanging it on the nearby coat rack. She sighed and stood in the front hall for what seemed like forever, when, finally, she moved to her bedroom. Tempted by the thought of a nice long bath, she opted for a shower instead.

She gathered fresh clothing, removed her grimy work clothes, and showered briefly, finishing by standing under the hot water for a minute longer than usual as she tried not to think about things.

Finished, she turned off the water and began shivering as she stepped out onto the cold, tiled floor.

As quickly as she had showered, she was dry, dressed in her warm winter pajamas, and on her way to the kitchen, where she put a kettle of water on to boil. The waiting was the hardest, though. She couldn't stop thinking about everything. About what she had said. Her mind was all over the place, and her thoughts were only interrupted by the steady whistle of the tea kettle.

Ceasing all thoughts, she turned off the heat to the stove, picked the kettle up and poured the water into the waiting mug. Done, she added milk and water, and put the milk away, before walking to the front hallway once more. Her determination already set in before she realized what she was doing, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her cellphone.

Flipping it open, the glare of the red and white background staring back at her, she stared at the screen for the longest moment, before closing it and walking back into her living room, and over to the window seat.

Her mind suddenly racing, she sat on the seat, staring at the building across from her for a minute, before turning her attention back to her cellphone. She set her mug on the window ledge, before opening her cellphone once again. No thought, she started to dial Danny's number. She stopped after a few numbers, though, and sighed, turning her head to look out the window.

She couldn't do this, she couldn't just call him. He'd probably never want to speak with her again, and on that thought she closed her phone and reached for her mug once more. Maybe in a while she would attempt to sleep. Maybe in a while she'd attempt to tell herself Danny was the forgiving kind of guy, but for now all she could think about was how stupid and thoughtless she had been.

\./

Guilt burrowing painfully into his shoulders and neck, Danny finally made it home to his apartment building. The doorman had asked how his night was, and with a shrug he had answered 'Same as always, Jack'. The truth was, it wasn't the same as always. No day this week had been '_the same as always'._

Pushing his way into his apartment, he pulled the key from the door, kicked it closed, and let the keys slip back into his coat pocket.

All the way he couldn't stop thinking about Louie. Thinking about betraying him, like he felt like he had in asking Lindsay if she'd go dancing with him tonight.

His brother was his responsibility, and he wanted to go out dancing.

Some brother he was.

Trying to get the thoughts from his mind, he showered for the night, and was going to get dressed in his pajamas, when Louie's name crept back into his mind. Thinking about the last time he saw him, and all those tubes and wires he had going into him, Danny got dressed in fresh clothing and was out the door again, on his way to the hospital.

The bus ride to the hospital was wrought with guilt-driven thoughts. He tried so hard to keep the thoughts from getting the best of him, but these days it didn't seem like he could.

The nurses' station in the ICU was a hub of activity, and as he stepped past the doctors and nurses he felt his guilt grow at an increasing weight.

Finally, he was in the room. Finally, he was watching as the machines breathed for Louie. He stood and stared, and when he felt the pinch of pain in his lower back, he stood and stared even longer.

Though, truthfully, after a while his standing there began to feel like one of those moments where you realize you've spent a long few minutes thoughtlessly taking everything in, and all of a sudden you're hit with every painful inch of reality of what's going on.

And that was Danny. Standing there, every painful inch of reality hit him, and he realized that all the information he'd been given, all the decisions that rested on his shoulders...were not what he wanted.

He realized he was tired of it all. Tired of feeling guilty for living a life beyond the crazy hell that was going on around him. He realized, more than anything, that he wanted to be free. He wanted to stop the dead weight in his heart, he wanted to stop feeling like he wasn't alive any more.

In those split seconds he felt more than he had in the last twenty-four hours, all without one single thought.

And in the final progression of that moment, histired eyes portrayed the final resignation in his heart, and when his shoulders sagged from the unconscious sigh he expelled, he disconnected. He let go of every feeling of guilt, of every thought of blame, and he stepped away.

No thought, no nothing, he just walked away.


End file.
